Sunday, July 6, 2008

Excerpt from Chicago

To be continued at some point...

...It takes the cab 18 minutes to go three blocks. Sitting motionless on a bridge over the Chicago River, listening to the nauseating smooth jazz of WNUA 95.5, I watch the traffic light turn from green to red three times. All without moving. Although I feel like a crazy lady as I throw a ten dollar bill through the plastic divider window of the cab and jump out onto the Clark St bridge, there is no doubt in my mind that this needs to happen. Surrounded by yelling and honking, I start running and I'm not sure why. There's this part of me that needs to move and be off the bridge, back on regular ground. I weave my way through the city blocks, around throngs of families and cops directing traffic. I'm not completely sure where I'm supposed to go, but somehow I end up there three and a half minutes before the fireworks begin.

We watch the fireworks from the 22nd floor of a building overlooking Michigan Avenue and Millennium Park. People are cracking jokes, eating pizza, singing Journey; all the usual. I hear a voice half jokingly make a toast: "Here's to more fireworks and less firearms from now on." As as cheesy as it sounds, everybody's jokes and singing and talking fade out and an unofficial moment of silence falls upon us as the fireworks tumble down the sky and disappear into the water.

They looked like chandeliers made from gold glitter. And my knees are weak. All from a few fireworks and this goddamned city that I just can't shake...